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Texas Casino Shut Down As Hope for Reprieve Dies

By midnight on Monday the jingle of 1,500 slot machines had been stilled, felt-covered tables had been cleared of chips and poker hands, and overflowing trash buckets were stacked where bingo players had earlier pored over ''Krazy Kash'' jackpot cards, hoping for a blackout.

As employees of the Speaking Rock Casino and Entertainment Center turned out the lights in its cavernous gambling halls for possibly the last time, Jackie Koller, 63, stood outside in a brisk chill, waiting for a taxicab.

''It's a dirty shame,'' said Mrs. Koller, a Buffalo resident who said she loved to gamble at the crowded casino on an Indian reservation 15 miles east of this dusty West Texas border city, when visiting family in El Paso. ''Here is this great place, with lots of slot machines and lots of friendly service, and now it's obviously the last time we'll ever come here.''

After nine years in operation, the Speaking Rock -- operated by the Tigua Indian tribe -- was ordered closed on Monday night after the United States Supreme Court refused to grant a stay to let the 70,000-square-foot casino remain in operation while tribal leaders fight a protracted legal battle with state authorities who want the casino shut down.

State officials say a 1987 federal law that recognized the Tiguas as a tribe put them under the jurisdiction of state gambling law, under which casinos are illegal. In a series of lower court decisions leading up to Monday's Supreme Court decision, Texas state officials have been vindicated. While other Indian-owned casinos have been closed, federal officials said, it has usually been because they violated their operating agreements with the states.

The economic impacts of the shutdown are expected to resound far beyond the sliver of Tigua tribal land on El Paso's outskirts.

A state report has indicated that losing the casino will cost this area 2,200 jobs and at least $60 million in payroll at a time when El Paso is already hard hit by the loss of 14,000 jobs since 1995 because of military base closings, global competition and the economic slowdown.

Tigua leaders worry about the effects on the tribe's 1,248 members. Half the tribe's work force was unemployed before the casino opened in 1993. Recently the tribe's unemployment rate was 1 percent.

''Indian tribes are encouraged to become self-sufficient and we're always criticized for expecting federal handouts or state welfare programs,'' said Albert Alvidrez, tribal governor for the Tigua Indian Reservation of Texas. ''But now, when we provide for our own communities, lift ourselves up by our bootstraps and become successful, the government wants to shut us down because of the competition.''

Mr. Alvidrez said state officials wanted to shutter the casino, which provides $55 million to $60 million a year to tribal programs in education, housing, and health care and employs nearly 800 people here, because Speaking Rock competed with the state's own lottery and other sanctioned gambling.

''The state operates 14,000 lottery terminals, there are 45,000 state-licensed slot machines in Texas, plus horse tracks, dog tracks, carnivals and two other Indian tribes that have casino gambling. Does closing down the Tigua Indians stop gambling in Texas?'' Mr. Alvidrez said. ''No, it just stops competition on our particular reservation.''

Attorney General John Cornyn, who sued to shut the casino in 1999, has said little about the lawsuit.

But in court filings the state said its objections to the casino were rooted in a complex interplay of state and federal laws. When Congress formally certified the Tiguas as a tribe in the 1987 Restoration Act, the act stated that the tribe, and several others, would abide by state gambling laws. And in Texas, high-stakes gambling is illegal, other than for the Texas lottery, which was established by a constitutional amendment approved by voters in the 1990's.

Roughly 200 other tribes are allowed to operate about 300 casinos in 25 other states across the country, said Kevin Washburn, general counsel for the National Indian Gaming Commission, a federal body established by another act of Congress that regulated tribal gambling, the Indian Gaming Regulation Act. That law requires states to enter into compacts with tribes that want to open casinos.

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''But the Tiguas have more specific legislation that says they will be governed by state law, not federal law,'' Mr. Washburn said.

Two other tribes have casinos in Texas. The Kickapoos in Eagle Pass are covered by the federal gambling act, but the Alabama-Coushatta tribe in East Texas face problems similar to the Tiguas' and state authorities have already started action to close its casino, which opened in December.

The Tiguas are pursuing their legal efforts and lobbying for state and federal legislation to let them reopen their casino, Mr. Alvidrez said.

Meanwhile, he said, ''we have to do something quickly to meet the tribe's financial and social needs.''

Each tribe member receives about $15,000 annually from the casino, and although only 60 work directly for the casino, many are employed by related businesses that will be affected, Mr. Alvidrez said.

One of those affected businesses is Desert Eagle Distributing, which provided Anheuser-Busch products to the casino. Robert Brown, the owner, says that Speaking Rock was the largest account among the 1,200 bars and restaurants the company serves.

''They brought a lot of people here that would never have come to El Paso who now will just go across the state line and gamble in New Mexico,'' Mr. Brown said. ''It's not just the loss of 800 jobs we'll feel, it's the loss of all the other jobs those tourists helped to fund.''

But more than any direct commercial losses, Mr. Brown said, he feared other impacts on the El Paso community.

''It's upsetting, because of what the Tiguas have been able to do with the casino money,'' he said, ''all of the charities that they help, all of the kids they keep in college, all of the affordable housing and medical care they've been able to provide.''

For Joseph Morris, 23, the impact is far more personal. A poker dealer at the casino for the last two and a half years, Mr. Morris has two children and a third on the way. Because he was earning $23,000 a year at the casino, he and his wife recently bought a new $79,000 home on El Paso's East Side.

''We're discouraged and disappointed, but we're trying to keep our spirits up,'' said Mr. Morris, who will receive a 60-day severance package with benefits from Speaking Rock.

Still, he said, ''I've lived here all my life and I know the kinds of jobs that are available. I know that where I was as working is as good as it can get.''